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Michael Druker 🇨🇦

@mdruker.app
11K followers 1.5K following 14K posts

Cities, justice, bad jokes. Dad. Immigrant 🇨🇦⬅️🇺🇸⬅️Ru. Erstwhile staff eng, advocate @tritag.ca, bsky tinkerer @feeds.mdruker.app. he/him. Support 🇺🇦 📍 Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario

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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 22h
TIL some Instant Pot owners don’t know those slots are lid holders
Instant Pot with its lid vertically sitting in a slot in a handle on the side
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 04/10/2026
The intersection where this collision happened is awful, but even the tourist central parts of Niagara Falls are strikingly pedestrian hostile
Satellite view of Stanley & Falls Ave in Niagara Falls - a massive signalized intersection of 6 lanes with 8 lanes, and sidewalks missing in the part of Falls Ave to the right
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 01/10/2026
Zoning is a mechanism for cities to allow the semi-detached houses on the left while banning the triplex on the right for not fitting desired neighbourhood character
Two large new semi-detached houses with garage driveways, next to ~70s era brick triplex — which is much smaller
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 01/10/2026
Good piece, and it’s not all bad signs
But Carney, prickly as he can be, prefers hearing that criticism to not. “People try and tell him what he wants to hear, and he views those people as not smart,” one source told me.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 28/09/2026
Victoria Park was looking nice today
Pedestrian bridge over waterway with trees (some starting to change colour), pathways, and a couple of towers in the distance, with long shadows towards the end of the dayWillow trees by pathway and creek/lake, with trees ahead lit up by late afternoon light
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 27/09/2026
It’s cute when it’s not throwing walnuts down on you
A red squirrel standing on a deck railing, with its tail arched over its back
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 27/09/2026
So this cross-platform viral video is fake, right? And basically no one is paying any attention to that... I hate it here (the year 2026)
Post from Maciek Hamela:

With the Strait of Hormuz closed, Iraq has resorted to moving its oil across the desert to Syria in hundreds of tanker trucks, in true Mad Max style. From there, it will be shipped to worldwide markets.

[video of dozens of tanker trucks racing across the desert alongside each other, pretty absurdly]
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 27/09/2026
If/when we can get this connection across Highway 7/8, this park is going to be a nice waypoint in a very well connected path network
Satellite view of area around Meadowlane Park, with an arrow added connecting trails on either side of Highway 7/8
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 27/09/2026
Randomly came across the @citykitchener.bsky.social grand reopening of Meadowlane Park today, with speeches and ribbon cutting and everything. A previously nondescript greenspace was turned into a stormwater retention pond with walking trails, pretty nice way to do climate change adaptation!
People walking around an irregularly shaped pond with new plantingsAnother view, showing a cobblestone path down to the water and people gathered in a landing along a trail
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 26/09/2026
Achievement unlocked: this gluten-free loaf I baked six days ago was still edible today
A nicely browned loaf of bread cooling on a rack
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 25/09/2026
Me, throwing stuff out
“Is this a pigeon?” meme with butterfly and text “Is this flexible plastic?”
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 24/09/2026
Many hands shape our urban environment
Raccoon paw prints in a new concrete sidewalk
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 24/09/2026
Nice to watch a master at work
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 23/09/2026
It was neat to be able to check out Perimeter Institute at Doors Open! Loved that the cafeteria has pencils and paper alongside the salt
Cafeteria tables with view out a glass wall onto the same outdoor Perimeter Institute space as in Katie’s OP
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 23/09/2026
The repo for this video (github.com/JohnHeibel/P...) links to the recent song from X but also to the original song with those lyrics from 2024, by this person and some unspecified models:
Screenshot from osmarks.net/feed:

microblog / 2024-11-11 06:38:42
The posthuman technocapital singularity is reaching backward in time to give itself a good soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86fZ50TysOg

(thanks to Dmytro and MusicPerson and I guess Udio's engineers.)
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 21/09/2026
I like this Jev character already
Jev has an answer!
You asked: Should minimum parking requirements be reduced?

Jev’s answer:

YES
75.0% probability of yes
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 20/09/2026
The best thing I can figure out is -make Erb and Bridgeport two-way again -close most of Caroline Street between Erb and Albert -make Caroline just south of Erb transit-only Really hard spot to fix, though we really need to try
Map of the area around Erb & Caroline
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 20/09/2026
We gotta make it easier to walk between Waterloo Park and uptown Waterloo though, this is a huge opportunity to make the core of the city work better
Crowds of people waiting to cross Caroline Street at Erb Street with the help of a police officer managing trafficCrowd crossing Erb Street at Caroline St from the mall parking lot, with police officer directing traffic
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 20/09/2026
The new Waterloo Park area is perfect for Lumen
People enjoying light-related installations after dark in Waterloo Park’s lakeside, with a city view
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 19/09/2026
When you guys engage with this stuff, you know these things are all fake, right? Right?
Post: Nothing but respect for my queen 👑

Image is a screenshot of a supposed mugshot of a smiling young, generically pretty white blonde woman. All caps text says: Florida woman found in a tree dressed as a squirrel throwing acorns at police and yelling “I am the squirrel queen!”
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 14/09/2026
I hate it here (the year 2026)
YouTube channel "Forgotten Canada" with a bunch of obviously AI-generated 40-minute "documentaries" for places in Canada posted over the last week
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 14/09/2026
The grand atrium of UW Engineering 5/7 is very grand, but very funny when looking from above at the dusty ledges littered with paper airplanes
Tall 7 storey open atrium in a campus building, with flat black cladding along the sides on which you can see thick dust and white paper airplanes
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 12/09/2026
They should’ve labeled the chart better but they do confirm the interpretation in the text
Same chart but with note:

Note: This table should be read in the same way as the previous one. For example, the column labeled “BC” indicates the percentage of British Columbians who have visited other regions of the country.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 10/09/2026
Maybe GRT can have one of these Canadian buses, as a treat www.foremost.ca/foremost-mob...
Screenshot - Foremost Terra Bus - Passenger comfort meets all-terrain durability

Photo shows a rugged, Canadian flag liveried bus on 6 massive wheels on the Columbia Icefield
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 10/09/2026
Lmao
Thread in replies to the quoted post:

ae @aelkus.bsky.social
there is a fascinating book on the history of demonology that makes point that for much of history demons were conceived as middlemen between people and the supernatural realm that you bargained with to get things done

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social
which book?

Ilan Muskat @calculon.bsky.social
The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne
Stroustrup
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 10/09/2026
So all of this really is now recyclable in Ontario curbside collection? What can they do with this kind of grab bag of stuff? Asking genuinely, only 20% cynically
Circular Materials website:

Flexible plastic packaging

Bags used for dry cleaning, bread, newspapers and flyers. Overwrap (paper towel & toilet paper, beverage containers). Coffee bags or deli pouches, chip bags, bubble wrap, snack wrappers, cereal liner bags, plastic gift bags.

 ✅ Empty and free from food residue.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 09/09/2026
It ain’t much but it’s honest work
3003 km on a Shimano odometer on an e-assist bike with front mounted plastic crate visible
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 02/09/2026
Screenshot:

Amazingly, following the series of incorrect predictions Ehrlich made in and after writing The Population Bomb in 1968, he followed this up with The Population Explosion in 1990 and has continued saying that we have global overpopulation that is causing or will cause a dire crisis unless we cut worldwide population. He has said the same thing this century and even this decade. It appears the only reason he's not saying that today is that he died earlier this year.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 01/09/2026
Via www.reddit.com/r/HelloInter...
How to measure things like a Canadian flowchart
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 30/08/2026
Google AI overview:

People started searching online with Google Search after it launched in 1998, and the word "google" became a common verb around 2002 to 2004.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 29/08/2026
screenshot from the page:

I got online in 1995, I think, at the time when the Internet felt like a sub-world, an after-hours club for people who could man the tiller of Netscape Navigator and find an AOL dial-up number in their county. Those who were using it also were creating it. It felt like the natural thing to do — add to the corpus of fun or useful stuff online. If you found something missing, and you were capable, you did it yourself. You could learn basic HTML in about an hour by looking at the construction of other sites and fiddling with it.

This isn't altruism: I made things online so I could use them.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 28/08/2026
Templated meme with Geordi

bad: commuter transit
good: regional transit
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 28/08/2026
Welcome to Bluesky. Please familiarize yourself with the following accounts to understand the range of opinions it is acceptable to express
Broken image icon
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 27/08/2026
This is Lake America:
Algae in the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington DC.
Photograph: Jessica Koscielniak/Reuters
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 25/08/2026
Make no small plans, etc
BYD's website saying:

Our Mission
Cool the Earth By 1°C
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 25/08/2026
TIL where “dog days of summer” comes from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius
Sirius is colloquially known as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (the Greater Dog).[20] The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the "dog days" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 19/08/2026
Still there!
Old steam train next to restored train station at Doon Pioneer Village
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 19/08/2026
Wait, hold up…
Google AI Overview for “write a tweet like bluesky user mdruker.app (no follow-ups)”:

Hear me out: a small UX tweak where feeds automatically reorganize themselves based on the exact amount of passive aggressive energy you're currently bringing to your timeline.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 19/08/2026
I don’t know who needs to hear this but Doon Heritage Village in Kitchener is open again (season ends September 6)
Small restored train station with a track section in front with an old red farmhouse in background19th century farmhouse with gardensCovered bridge over a creekA few old shop buildings on a gravel street: harness shop, tailor, post office
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 19/08/2026
The Kitchener Public Library central branch is nice
Huge pink-to-white hanging paper art piece in a multi-storey library foyerAiry library space with bookshelves on one side and desks on the other near tall window walls
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 18/08/2026
dril tweet:

Food $200
Data $150
Rent $800
Candles $3,600
Utility $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 15/08/2026
It’s ragebait AI slop, not even a real person (but those sharing it might be)
More posts from the screenshotted account on X:

Nobody talks about how "office supplies" used to be provided by your employer. Now you're expected to have your own laptop, phone, internet, desk, and chair for remote work, then they call it a "perk." You're paying for their overhead and thanking them for the privilege.

The vacation that used to cost $1,200 for a week now costs $4,000 before you leave the house.
Flights tripled, hotels doubled, and they added resort fees, baggage fees, seat fees, and booking fees. You're not traveling, you're being charged incrementally to exist somewhere else

I miss when "happy hour" actually meant
X
discounted drinks. Now it's "select drinks only" from 3-5 PM on Tuesdays, and the discount is $2 off a $16 cocktail. They rebranded full price as a deal and we all just accepted it.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 15/08/2026
Little free libraries are great
Dog stick library right next to the sidewalk, with some nice clean sticks in it
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 14/08/2026
Waterloo Park is really nice, you guys
Lush grasses and bushes in front of Silver Lake on a summer day with wispy clouds. Perimeter Institute and Uptown Waterloo are in backgroundSimilar view but closer to the new waterfront section, on a pathway
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 11/08/2026
People are nominally upset by what they believe about data centre impacts, but I’m pretty sure the vitriol is because people feel AI changing the world underneath their feet. You’re not going to address that with good data centre regulations
Poorly Drawn Lines comic

Man A: I’m mad!
Man B: Here’s a solution.
Man A, lighting solution on fire: I don’t want a solution.
Man A: I want to be mad.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 09/08/2026
On this website the AI haters and AI enjoyers can agree that the big AI companies are bad
AI companies seem to love making this story about the AI being scary, because if you blame the AI, you aren’t blaming them. AI companies love talking about security, and about broad and non-specific regulations they know will never happen, but if you propose auditing their security practices or introducing criminal penalties for what they do they weep tears of blood.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 07/08/2026
Wow, a Facebook ad I appreciate. TIL one of the biggest nuclear power sites in the world has a visitor centre with bus tours, you can just drop by on the way to a nice day on a Lake Huron beach www.brucepower.com/in-the-commu...
Facebook ad for Bruce Power:

Join Bruce Power for a site bus tour between June 1 and October 8 to learn about clean energy and medical isotopes.
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 05/08/2026
Hearing the red squirrel in the tree full of heavy walnuts above me like
Willem Dafoe fearfully looking up
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 04/08/2026
Seems like a perfectly fine spot to build some damn homes, maybe even denser than what's proposed. Why are we even talking about this
Satellite map of part of Bridgeport area of Kitchener, with a large vacant lot in an interior of a rough block of low density homes, near an industrial section and several arterial roads not far away
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Michael Druker 🇨🇦 @mdruker.app · 04/08/2026
There’s one Waterloo student housing developer that went weird with some of its projects in Northdale, I think just because they could www.pricaglobal.com/projects
Photos of several odd-looking residential towers, one with a red and white weaving grid of cladding
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